a pup on a dog of a boat

Amatuer Sailors,

Did note that Pup's career as an ocean racing yachstman, came to an early, abrupt end.
Not much in it as it turns out for the owner/skipper, Anthony Bell, who said he could "barely afford to have Clarke on board", after the vain and unsuccessful attempt to whip the general public up into a frenzy of anticipation with all the pre-race hype.
The former Strayan Captain would have been calling for the popping of Champagne corks when Loyal was first out the heads, must have thought "this is money for jam", until the fleet was hit by a SSW buster that was packing it out to 40+ knots.
Steerage rooted, didn't get much beyond Jervis Bay, so they took down the sails, turned around, and motored back to Sydney.
Clarkey reckons he had "one or two chucks" while they were still racing, then qualified his statement with "actually there were quite a few of us chucking off the back of the boat".
Suppose that no one had a clue what he was meant to be doing on the yacht in the first place, before he became indisposed.
Owner/skipper Bell would have been banking on the 'appearance fee' he paid Pup to turn out at the Q.L.D. [the "Quiet Little Drink" in Hobart after handicap honours are decided - a riotous all-day invitation-only party involving thousands, the day before the King of the Derwent race. Little wonder they run boats aground in that].
Oh well, back to the nappy changing routine, and trying to sell off his surplus to requirements farm in the Southern Highlands; been on the market for the best part of a year without a single bid from a genuine buyer.
Oops, might have overcapitalised a bit there, Pup.
He'd much rather have the cash in Micheal Clarke Investments Inc.
And he's missed out on a week's holiday wid de boyz at 42 degrees south, to boot.
Hasn't Clarkey got c'est la vie tattooed on one or other of his arms along with carpe diem and some meaningless Arabic phrase?
Perhaps not.
Bugger.
Still rue the day many years ago stumbling into the Front Bar at the The Local, admittedly, looking rather ramshackle, and ordering a schooey of Carlton to settle the nerves.
Noticed The Philosopher in his usual corner reading in his fishwrap something about the general outrage that Tiger Woods was being being paid millions to play in Australia.
The Prof looked at me over the top of his tipple of the day, a dry gin martini with a green olive and swizzle stick in it, then lowered his reading glasses and peered at me again over the rims with his beady eyes and told me straight up: "Craves, no one will ever pay you an 'appearance fee', ever".
He still owes me the martini he never bought me, but sure-as-hell should have, to help me cope with my obvious state of devastation.
Bastard.

And while Michael's back home, there's been some cricket going on, apparently.
Very much enjoyed Usman Tariq Khawaja's 144 in Melbourne, not to mention his 50 odd in the second innings.
What was there not to like about it?
Never mind that it was against what amounted to 2nd grade district bowling.
Usman [or as he's known in some very politically incorrect circles as "The Token Muzzie"] grew up in the NSW system, where the sole aim is to produce good first class cricketers without any regard whatsoever for colour, race, or creed. [Richard Chee Quee comes to mind - as my father would have said "only the second slit-eyed chokie after Hunter Poon to have played first class cricket in Australia" - also a product of the system, 21 games for NSW]
Joisus, even some sexual proclivities can be tolerated by the NSW selectors, as long as it stays out of the papers.
Token knew all the rules of how to pay the game and the system, made his way up on the back of hard work; it's the only way in NSW, where they couldn't care less which school you went to.
Only the cream of very good first class cricketers rise to the top, and he knows it.
Helps if you have talent, also.
Got all the shots.
With his now rare orthodox stance and elegant style he can hit the ball to any part of the ground he likes, but his magnificent legside play is reminicent of a Micheal Clarke or a Mark Waugh - they all just made it look so easy.
And you've gotta love those lofted cover drives that sail over the top of the field and hit the advertising hoardings with a thump a second or two later.
Rarely offers a chance, unless he has a moment of fatigue, a distraction, a bout of laziness, when he's most always given out.
However, you could fear that yet another potentially glittering career could be cruelled by injury - you just never know - how Pup lasted as long with his chronic case of Shaggers Back as he did remains a mystery; something to do with the jewel in the crown of being picked as Captain, they tell me.
Being dropped multiple times by the selectors and being wracked with niggles can drive some ordinary blokes completely and utterly crazy - down to the madhouse for you, Jimmy - yet in some cases it "maketh the man".
Tokes is one of those.

on "the pink stink"

Aghastees,

Pup would never have had a bar of it.
Not one to try to channel Clarkey [he's too busy seeing his accountant, adjusting to having a wee bairn in the house, and learning how to sail a boat to Hobart], but if he was still the Strayan Captain, he would have seen straight through this day/night test cricket nonsense - "the pink stink" - for what it is - a money grubbing excercise of the highest, most flagrant order.
And he'd know.
[Let me explain here. Many years ago, a few of my friends hired a car, in Alice Springs if memory serves me right, and the only vehicle available was a bright pink VW beetle. After parking the car in the motel car park overnight, they awoke next morning to find a huge, freshly-laid, steaming human turd neatly curled up on the bonnet of the car - the vehicle became known, of course, as "the pink stink". Over the years the term "pink stink" has morphed into something that describes anything from a particularly foul smelling object, to any kind of cockup, usually rather minor and of little consequence, right through to a gigantic goatfuck in the affairs of state. Now we can add day/night Test cricket to the list].
Sure test cricket has evolved over time.
You have to remember that when the first Australian [all Aboriginal] team turned up in England in 1868, overarm bowling had had only been legalised for two years, after a long and bitter shitfight over the issue.
When the first Australian test team arrived nine years later, there would have been plenty of underarm and roundarm bowling still going on.
In fact lob bowling persisted in first class cricket right into the 1920's when it finally died.
With the way this pink ball swings which way and that at night, and loops, spins, bounces and goes round corners for the slow men, we might was well go back to the future by playing day/night test cricket with lob bowling on a hessian matting pitch.
At least that would be far more interesting.
The very first test of all was played over three days on little more than a used dog track, but as the art of pitch curation developed and the draw became the most common result, they went to the completely opposite extreme of timeless tests, which people soon got sick of, not because of the tedium, but because it took time as a factor out of the game - before they mucked about forever and finally settled on five days.
Got no problem with shortening test matches to four days, like other first class matches, but the first pink ball test lasted two days and five and a bit hours - and it was as boring as batshit.
Bugger the result, let's face it, who wants to watch a bunch of fairly ordinary bowlers get away with 1st degree murder?
Test cricket has long been a delicious combination of runs, wickets and time - all utterly unpredictable - long periods of slow play interspersed with extreme excitement and high drama.
You can even look at it as a Shakesperian play in five acts if you wish, and the Indian Hindu sect that has cricket as its cult take it to another level altogether.
But since when did the actual time of day become a major tactic in the Captain's arsenal, with the vast majority of the wickets being taken at night, when the batsmen can't see the pink ball - they can't even see the seam on the ball at any time of day.
To play the four innings would have been even shorter, except for the number of dropped catches - a direct result of the inability of the players to see the pink ball off the bat at any time, especially if it's hit hard into the slips cordon.
Even Skipper Smiffy dropped a few, and he must have among the best set of catching hands in the world game.
There was nothing unequivocal about Smiffy's disgust then he turfed what ordinarily would've been a sitter.
As for the true traditionalist and the die-hard, they would have been horrified by the demise of Australia's cream-coloured uniform; in day/night test matches, everyone plays in white.
As an experiment, it's a complete dud.
Could not stand how the commentators on Channel Grime continuously talked up the idea as if it was the best thing since bottled Scotch.
Really?
How many people pay Warney to say it is "amazing" "fantastic" "brilliant" ad nauseum.
He thanked everyone bar his grandmother for coming up with or encouraging the "most innovative" concept the game has ever seen.
Sickmaking.
Only Chappelli refused to tow the company line...you could hear in his voice he was desperate to mark the whole shooting match down as an epic fail.
Nearing the end of the game he actually said "at no time in this match has any of the batsmen had a genuine chance to really get settled".
Blasphemy! According to the edicts from on high.
Then there were the fudged crowd figures.
On the first two days official crowds of 40K+ were posted, but My Spy at the Ground says 15-20 thousand of those were out the back getting pissed as parrots in the salubrious surroundings of the manicured lawns of the Members relaxation area, [the number of Members far outweighing the number of available seats] featuring comfortable garden chairs and tables, fully stocked bars, picnic hampers etc.
Most, if not all, of these people never saw a ball bowled.
For the great unwashed in The Outer, they would have spent hours pre-loading in the many pubs that surround the ground before getting to the game for a 2pm start.
After the so-called "dinner break" [no one seemed to know what the breaks were actually called, probably because no-one at the powers-that-be had bothered to think up names for them], the entire crowd was as the newt.
It was if the good/bad old days had returned, when you allowed to take your own esky full of beer onto the old hill at Adelaide Oval, but at least back then they had the decency and sense to impose a 24 can limit, per person.
Yet it still only got a touch messy after tea.
My Spy at the Ground had vivid stories of hoards of legless drunks pouring and stumbling out of the ground.
Of course, you'd expect to see a few pot-bellied piss-suckers at any game - nothing wrong with that - but in this day and age - the whole crowd?
If it aint broke, don't fix it.
If it is, as the money changers in the temples seem to think it is, and you can't fix it with a good length of fencing wire, then it aint worth fixing.
And as the blokes who hired the pink VW soon found out - you can't polish a turd.

only three nags can win the Melbourne Cup

My dear departed father's System for picking Melbourne Cup winners {"The System"} has been around since the Great Depression.
The System has thrown up close to 40 winners since the war, so that's a strike rate of more or less one in two Cups.
After an unusually prolonged drought, The System finally found a winner in Protectionist last year.
But who can forget the glory days with winners like Delta Blues, Ethereal, Brew, Rogan Josh, the legend surrounding Doriemus, and of course Tawriffic, who had the race won at the turn and saluted the judge at 33/1!?
The System usually identifies a handful of runners that can win the Cup, and this year has found three - then the choice is yours; or back all three, or trifecta them, or do nothing, or go mad with it.
Rob's modus operandi was to back the longest priced runner until your nose bleeds, and keep the others safe.

So here's my little annual form guide to the only three nags that can win the Melbourne Cup:

4. OUR IVANHOWE [GER] 56kg. 6yo h. T: L&A Freedman. J: B.Melham. (22). Well travelled import who has raced in England, Germany, France and Japan. Noted mudlark who revels in heavy conditions. Has form to go on, and came into The System with an impressive 3rd Caulfield Cup. Should get the trip. Extreme outside barrier and weight will play against him, but in a canny stable and set for this race a long way out. Will be among the favourites on a wet track. Respect.

10. TRIP TO PARIS [IRE] 55kg. 5yo g. T: E.Dunlop. J: T.Berry. (14). Out-and-out stayer. Won on all kinds of tracks in England, and at this distance. and is nicely in at the weights. Rocketed into the system with an eye catching 2nd Caulfield Cup, running on, looking for extra distance. Only a short preparation this time in, but will stay the two miles. Ideally drawn. Deserved second favourite behind Japanese raider. Should be prominent at the Clocktower, and right in this at the finish.

19. PRINCE OF PENZANCE [NZ] 53kg. 6yo g. T: D.K.Weir. J. Ms M.Payne. (1).
Dour stayer. Rank outsider in this, having been spelled for almost a year before this preparation. Now has plenty of miles in the legs.Trip a query. No form to speak of until he crept into The System almost un-noticed with a creditable, if plodding, 2nd Moonee Valley Gold Cup. Absolute boil over if he wins this, but at his best on soft going and has the country's best female hoop on board who knows her way around Flemington. Back on the nose to win a small fortune.


Enjoy!

doctored pitches & hopeless selectors

Aghastee's,

With the footy finals upon us -- let us not forget; the horrible 3-2 mess, as it quickly gets expunged from the brain when the reality of it is too frightful to contemplate.
But, as Glenn McGrath will tell you, and MJ Clarke is likely to agree after recent experience, when in England, it doesn't really matter if you win or lose that Stupid Little Urn [because you'll will win it back again, at home, anyway].
So long as you win at both grounds in London.
The Poms can have that provincial rubbish that masquarade as cricket grounds.
Straya doing OK on that score given they haven't been beaten at Lords for a million years, and love playing at Kennington Oval.
And Ooh Aaah knows a thing or two about Lords [always said there should be a a small bronze bust of McGrath near the Grace gates].
The Poms have got a curious set up going there.
While the Marleybone Cricket Club is by far the most important and famous club in the world, why is it that the ranks of its Membership are chock full of "cads, shysters, and bounders" with rather poor reputations.
Lords began as, and remains, a drinking club with a cricket problem.
It's long been known that The Oval has a much better class of clientle, both among the Membership and the mug punter who pays his quids at the gate.
They know their cricket there.
So why is it that a Membership at Lords is the most prestigous, most sought after, and most expensive in the world?
It's because the ruffians still write the rules [or The Laws as they like to call them]; the ICC can go sod themselves as far as they are concerned.
End of story.
[while they're at it they should shorten test matches to three of four days, like it was back in the days of yore]
If only Pup was in form [38,4,7,32no,10,3,10,13,15] Straya would have won the Ashes easily, but he was done in by doctored pitches.
Everybody forgets that Broad had done absolutely nothing in the previous 12-18 months, but give him a tailor-made green-top pitch that seams, swings, and bounces all over the shop like a mad woman's breakfast, and suddenly he's a world beater.
What a disgrace.
Broad topped the bowling aggregates, but the next four best were all Australian.
How's that work?
What a complete and utter fraud, perpetrated, nay flaunted, on the part of the Poms. .
The Ashes were also lost on the back of Straya's Hopeless Selectors.
Wrong-headed decisions on who they would play in each match were mired in selectors mistakes.
Series losing mistakes.
What's the betting MJ Clarke, more than once, led a team out onto the ground that he thought wasn't quite right?
Pup obviously believes in "the buck stops here", and sensibly took the rap and retired immediately [never mind that he was going to anyway].
But what about RW Marsh?
The bloke is as blind as a bat, and surely should have fallen on his sword, along with the three faceless men, by now.
And then there's DS "Boof" Lehmann.
All he seemed to do was wander about the dressing room, looking worried or glum.
They lost out, so sack the lot of them, for mine, then someone else can start looking after the next generation.
Whatever Michael decides to do in retirement, standing in the queue at Centrelink won't be one of them.
The first thing Pup did on the Monday after The Oval test?
Register Michael J Clarke Investments as a company, with him as the sole director.
Who would have thought that Pup's other nickname was "Moneybats"?
MJ Clarke's taxable income for the financial year '14-'15 is estimated about $5M, with current assets, realized or not, amounting to roughly $17-$18M.
Wanna buy his estate in the Southern Highlands, complete with cricket oval?
It's on the market, at the right price.
Too busy changing nappies to manage a farm.
The fishwraps reckon that Pup is "the most cashed up cricketer to leave the game".
Nonsense.
WG Grace woud have given him a real run for his money in today's cash.
There's also some irony then, that Arthur Morris - "The Elegant Genius" - and probably the best left hand bat to ever play the game - died during the Oval test at the age of 93.
Whenever anyone asked Morris "Arthur, what was the biggest thing that you took out of cricket?" he always replied "Poverty".

on the retirement of MJ Clarke

Canine Fanciers,

You could read the writing on the wall as clear as day.
The day before MJ Clarke left for England he announced that he and his broad were expecting a wee bairn.
The fact that he'd retire from Test Cricket at the end of the Ashes tour, win lose or draw, was stating the bleedin' obvious.
He'll be too busy changing nappies in the seaside mansions and sheep stations that he owns, to do much else [let's face it - Pup has now been reduced to selling toothbrushes] while his "beautiful wife" goes about her business, [whatever that is].
The immediate thought was "about time, Pup".
He's coming to fatherhood fairly late in the piece - he'll be 55 by the time the kid is 21.
And he'll probabaly be in wheelchair due to his chronlc case of Shaggers Back.
Not even importing a half-million state-of-the-art machine for the US of A, that shoots gamma rays through your back while rolfing it at the same time, or some such nonsense, did jack shit for it.
Reckons he picked up his first dose at age 18 or 19 and it steadily got worse through his early 20's before it settled down a tad as he underwent a wholesale lifestyle and image make over to make him more appealing to the public [a monumental failure].
This was back in the day, when he still drove a Ferrari, wore sharp clothes, and dined in only the finest restaurants; a surefire winner with the ladies.
Then it became chronic -- as he'll now be able to feel it for the rest of his born days.
"Oh shit, love, me back's gorn, again" - or something like that.
Didn't spend long in first class cricket until he was announced to the world as the great white hope and picked for Straya way too early, and then the wunderkid was very shabbily treated by the selectors, dropped not once, not twice, but three times before forcing his way back in though the weight of first class runs.
In the denoument The Board got sick of it, and told the selectors "Bugger you lot. We'll make the bastard captain if Ponting ever decides to retire".
He was a fine leader of men on the field [maybe not so much off the filed -- buty only the blokes in the dressing room can have a genuine opinion about that - Simon Katich has definite viwews for one - and you know what everyone said about Bradman].
His was a masterful tactician on the field, constantly on the go, never let the game drag, and was well known for a "sporting" declaration or two.
In short, he had a cricket brain the size of a watermelon.
No one in their right mind would think he was anything less than a master batsman [when in form mind you].
Had all the shots.
Although he did have the annoying habit of touching himself all the time - gloves on, gloves off, rearranging his box just to check his dick was still there, the pads had to be just so, the helmet also, and finished off with with tugging at the collar of his shirt - this, between every ball, not just between overs!
So with all the above, why was it that the Strayan public never ever liked him, never warmed to him, never captured their imgaination, never put him close to the pedestal on which national heroes sit?
Who knows?
Perhaps it was his ill-judged first engagment to what's her name -- but somehow thinking it ran deeper than an a woman with ridiculous breasts.
What it was, or what combination of factors were involved, we'll never really know now that he's gone.
Said it before, say it again, but will never forget seeing MJ Clarke play for the first time in the flesh.
He was but a pimpled yoof, not long after his debut for NSW, and well before he was considered for Strayan selection.
It was a Sheffield Shield match at Newcastle No.1 Ground.
Who NSW were playing has been lost in the mists of time.
It was a hot day, the third day if memory srves me right, with NSW looking for a big lead to set a target.
Me and me best mate were sitting in the shade offered by the huge stand of Moreton Bay figs trees, guzzling beers, and watching play from almost directly side on to the wicket.
In comes this kid no one had heard of.
He knocked the ball about a bit for a few overs, then the trade mark shots came out; the leg glance, the crisp cover drive, straight hitting par excellence.
We were struck by just how good his leg side play was, and simultaneously remarked to each other "this kid can play".
Then, out of the blue, Pup dances down the pitch to some hapless spinner who's name escapes me, and smote the ball with one almighty blow.
It sailed high over the head of mid-on, the ball was still on the up as it cleared the boundary rope, then went over the ground's perimeter fence by some distance finally landing on the netball courts out the bck, where it bounced a few times then rolled across six netball courts before quietly slipping down the embankment on plopping into Mullet Creek.
The ground ball-boys went out for a quick look, but promptly called "lost ball" [privately thinking 'we'll go back for that one later as a souvenir'].
We turned to each other and said "this kid can play".
Fell in love with the turd, then and there.
And who was batting at the other end?
Mark Waugh - in the twilight of his career.
Immediately thought Pup would be the natural replacement for MA Waugh - and so it came to pass, not so long afterwards.
With the announcement of the end of his career, people called Clarkey and his career many things ["chequered career", appeared to be the most common word used in the fishwraps].
Don't care.
Still love the the big shit.
Always will.
An enigma, it ever there was one.
Vale MJ Clarke.
We'll miss you.
Miss you bad.
But, the King is dead, long live Smiffy - "the baby-faced killer"
My Spy at The Ground sent through a telegraph message from Nottingham "First innings total 60. Clarke's Nadir".
He couldn't go lower, so by now there was no other option but to say farewell after only 46 matches as test skipper.
The Stats Guru will give you any number of numbers; not only can Pup say he scored a ton on debut [in India, of all places}, fewer still can boast they scored a triple hundred, on their home ground no less - he can dine out on free lunches for the rest of his life on the strength of that alone.
Here's a bloke who's won The Ashes [lost some too], won the World Cup [lost a few too], but in the end there is only one number that matters.
49.30.
His test batting average.
His poor form on the current tour cruelled his average, which was in the 50's before going England.
That should be restored by a big unbeaten ton at The Oval, to bookend his career.
He's due.
Anyone who averages 50, or very close to it, over a nine year career, is automatically admitted to The Pantheon of master batsmen of all time, for mine.
The day after Straya lost the Ashes and Pup announced he was giving the game away, popped my head around the front door of the Front Bar of The Local.
The denizens told me the Brown Bros. were out doing what they were meant to be doing - laying footpaths for the council - but in any case they wouldn't know, let alone care, who Michael Clarke was.
Found The Philosopher in his usual corner sipping this week's favoured tipple, a tonic and lime which a marachino cherry to top it off.
[The barmaid later told me, much to my astonishment, that he'd sworn off the drink].
He shuffled his newspaper which of course featured bold print and large photographs of that Stupid Little Urn and Pup front and back.
The Prof settled on the back page and poked it with his bony finger and said, his voice trailing away:
"Almost every day, some underpinning slips away..."

here endeth the the blog

Loyalists,

After 42 days in hospital, some things are bound to fall by the wayside -- and the football blog is one of them.
I have different perspectives now, and after eight-and-a-half years on the job, I no longer find any pleasure in meeting the Thursday deadline.
The hundreds of posts and the thousands of pirated photographs will remain archived in the cloud at:
http://crazycraves.blogspot.com.au/
Of course, this space will remain open for comment on the exploits of MJ Clarke, particularly in the upcoming juicy Ashes series, but the football blog is finished, kaput, gorn.
Many thanks to the GTW [otherwise known as The Good Lady Wife], My Spy at The Ground, The Brown Bros, the Stats Guru, and particularly The Philosopher, without whom the blog would not have been possible.
In the words of John Arlott: "to report the doings of Parliament; the development of business or industry, the progress of a war, may be a grave and historic matter. A game, though, is serious only in the extent of the pleasure it may give. Its reporting should be a record of pleasure."
So here endeth the blog.
Thanks for reading and thanks for all the fish.

Crazy Craves.

unbeatable, invincible?

My fellow Stoics,

Due to circumstances beyond my control which extended to some minor surgey for chrissake, this week's bloggy blog blog is limited to some coach's comments.
Scoreboxes are included for the sake of completeness, on account of they never lie.
With any luck, normal services will be resumed next week.

Coach Squeak Taylor of Balmain:
"we should have won, anyway you look at it, we should have won; never mind the referees and the ridiculous penalty count against us, we should have won, how many times do I have to say it, but in reality, we should have won"
And so he went on, and on, and then some, knowing not the time when to shut up.

NEW ZEALAND WARRIORS 32: Tries: Vatuvei (2), Thompson, Johnson, Townsend, Lolohea. Goals: Johnson (4).
WESTS TIGERS 22: Tries: Simona (2), Richards, Tedesco. Goals: Richards (3).
At Mt Smart Stadium, Auckland.
Crowd: 13,781.

Coach Ken Hinkley of Port Adelaide:
"If they [the Swans] can defend like that week in, week out, every week, they are invincible, unbeatable..."
Nuff said.
Speaking of defence, hearty congrats should be accorded to The Great Teddy Richards for playing his 200th game.
He would be as astonished as anyone that he has managed to play in that many games without anyone really noticing.

PORT ADELAIDE: 1.1, 4.2, 6.5, 6.8(44). Goals: Ryder 2, Schulz, Westhoff, Wingard, Monfries.
SYDNEY: 3.1, 7.4, 11.6, 14.8 (92). Goals: Franklin 3, Towers 2, Jetta, Hannebery, Tippett, Jack, Lloyd, Rohan, McVeigh.
At Adelaide Oval.
Crowd: 49,765.